McLaren's CEO Zak Brown re-frames leadership as a service function. His primary job is to ensure his 1,400-person team has the tools, funding, and motivation to succeed. He sees himself as one employee whose responsibility is to "keep them all fed and hungry."

A veteran biotech CEO argues that true accomplishment lies in assembling and empowering great teams, not claiming personal credit for milestones like drug approvals. He asserts that any leader who needs personal credit for collective achievements cannot be truly effective.

CEO Oliver Karaz defines his role by three decision types: 1) hiring senior leaders he can trust to run their domains, 2) absorbing blame for calculated risks to encourage team innovation, and 3) integrating diverse inputs to set the company’s long-term 'where the puck is going' strategy.

In a highly technical field, a leader's job is not to be the smartest person in the room. Instead, their role is to surround themselves with brilliant specialists, ask the right questions to connect disparate pieces of information, and guide the collective expertise toward a single, unified goal.

In the early stages, a biotech CEO's role is primarily scientific leadership and storytelling to attract investors. As the company and market mature, the role shifts. Effective CEOs must then become adaptable strategists, staying true to their core vision while responding to the dynamic industry environment.

Unlike a functional manager who can develop junior talent, a CEO lacks the domain expertise to coach their entire executive team (e.g., CFO, VP of HR). A CEO's time is better spent hiring world-class leaders who provide 'managerial leverage' by bringing new ideas and driving their function forward, rather than trying to fix people in roles they've never done.

Having sat on both sides of the table, Erik van den Berg defines the distinct roles. Management's job is to execute the plan, solve daily problems, and create operational options. The board's role is to challenge assumptions, provide high-level connections, and act as a strategic coach for the leadership team.

Biotech CEOs with business-only backgrounds often possess a crucial humility about their scientific limitations. This forces them to prioritize hiring exceptional R&D talent and empowering them to succeed, avoiding the trap of micromanagement.

A CEO without a deep scientific background can thrive in biotech by acting as a synthesizer. The key is not to blindly delegate to experts, but to ask probing questions, understand the interplay between disciplines (regulatory, clinical, etc.), and connect them for effective decision-making.